Tis the Season Has Arrived

OK, November is just about out of here. Wow, where did it go?

I've been doing a bit of decorating on these dark nights because that holiday spirit has hit me. Taking it slow and having fun with it.

I've also been working in the Christmas journal I made.

 A stamp collage. I don't remember where I got all of these vintage stamps and stickers but I was glad to find them when I was going through my holiday stash.

 This sock monkey was a postcard that came in box with a couple of holiday gifts I bought online. I colored him, cut him out and added him to my page. On the card was the  sock monkey fact and I thought would be fun to add to my page. I remember when I  was pregnant with my daughter all those years ago one of my coworkers made me a red heeled sock monkey for the baby.

And a little collaged page on the right with some other items like a map tag, a Santa sticker, the polar bears off a diet coke bottle, some snow paper, a stamped Santa sleigh and some mitten die cuts. 

I've been digging through my little box of scraps (those pieces too good to throw away) to find all these bits. :)

With hubby recuperating so nicely, I am hoping I have a little more time in December than I did in November.  But then again I know how December can get. :) A lot of fun and a little bit crazy.

Thanks for stopping by to visit.

T For Tuesday- the Thanksgiving Edition

Tuesday is here, and that means, its another T Day. A big hello to the T gang. Today I thought I would share my Thanksgiving dinner with you.

I had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. With the hubby recuperating from his heart surgery and me just wanting a low key day at home. it ended up just being 3 of us for dinner, my husband, my daughter and myself. My daughter's boyfriend came later in the day for dessert and brought a yummy pumpkin pie he baked with him.

I spent a lot of my day cooking, which was actually quite fun since I had no time restraints and no company I needed to entertain.

I got up early and made an apple pie.

 And I decided to try to try this filling in a jaw.

 Just mix it with eggs, pour it into a shell and bake.

No one likes pecan pie but me, and I will say pie in a jar was actually quite good.

 I roasted the turkey, made the stuffing, made a sweet potato casserole and roasted some winter squash too.

 My table wasn't fancy but still felt fall festive.

You can see the pills my husband has to take each meal because of his kidney failure. For some reason he put them on his plate.

And here's my dinner. You can see I had a glass of white wine with my meal.

And then after dinner ended and we had cleaned up, we had a 5 hour Clue game marathon.

Even when my daughter's boyfriend arrived he joined in, and we took a little dessert break and played some more.

I don't think we've ever had such a quiet holiday, but it was just as fun as when we've had dinner with a big crowd.

To see what other T gang ladies have been up to, stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's Blog.
And if you have a drink/food related post you can link up too.
Happy T Day!

Bits and Bobs

Hi everyone. Its Sunday evening as I write this and I am trying to get myself excited to go back to work tomorrow. It will be tough-ha-ha, but I can handle it. This will be my first 5 day week since October, but the good news is the hubby is improving a lot so that I don't feel worried about him, unless he decides he can do things he isn't yet suppose to do (like heavy lifting and driving). Today he goes back to see the surgeon so we will hopefully find out when he can go back to work (which he says he is ready to do) and can drive again. I don't know if the doctor will give him the go ahead or not, but my husband is convinced he will. :)

I have another collage page for you today. It has No faces, NO leaves and No wings. So I am linking up to Art Journal Journey, which is hosted this month by Susi. 

I made this page yesterday when I said the heck with the mess in my house and spent the whole afternoon playing in my happy place. I used up a bunch of die cuts and other pieces that were piled up on my table. I also had a mail envelope which I cut out the mail piece.

I'm glad I had this time, even better that my daughter took my husband out. he wants to go someplace every day as he is sick of sitting home. It is why I was out and about so much this weekend, but I had my stay home day yesterday. Even better I had some arty time which made me happy.

This week in the evening I want to work on getting the rest of my holiday decorations up. I think this is the first Thanksgiving weekend I didn't do that.

Oh well, things will get done eventually.

Enough said here.

Have a great new week everyone.

No Paint

Its been a busy  and fun Thanksgiving weekend in my world. I've eaten too much delicious food, played lots  rounds of the kid's board game CLUE, gone shopping, and then some more shopping. My house is a mess with Christmas decoration boxes. I've done some of  my decorating. At least I finally got all the Thanksgiving dishes (that were clean) put away. But the piles of laundry  need to be attacked. Now I am ready for a relaxing vacation. Too bad the weekend winds down tomorrow. :)

So I haven't done any art at all, but here's a journal page I finished up before the holiday weekend. 

I made it by layering colored paper, old sewing patterns, paper from an old phone book and and some printed tissue paper. Then I added some stamped images, some paper measuring tape (left behind by one of my husband's visiting nurses) and a cloth bow. I colored the stamped stars with a gold marker.

I'm linking up to Art Journal Journey. This month Susi is hosting and the theme is collage-but NO faces, leaves or wings. 

I know November is winding time but there is still time  to join in.

And I am also linking up to Try It On Tuesday. The present theme is layering, and I think this page works just perfect for that.

So I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, and enjoy what is left to it.

Happy Turkey Day

I made this silly turkey page in my journal. 

I want to wish all of you that celebrate Thanksgiving a happy day.

And I want to say thanks to  all my blog friends and readers. I am thankful I've gotten to know all of you. 

And to all of you who may not celebrate Thanksgiving, I want to wish you a good day too. 

I'll be back later this weekend! 💗💗💗

Steampunkish

This page has such a bow to it. Sorry for the not so great photo, but I was trying to snap it while there was still some natural light. 

So today another page for art journal journey. This month our hostess is the talented Susi, and her theme is collage, but NO wings, faces or leaves.

My page started out with me finding this steampunk heart stamp in my stash, and somehow I got thinking about Dr Who (the old series), don't ask me how that goes together but it is how my brain works I guess.

So my page became  bit of a steampunk style page, and I must say I like it, rolled corners and so much going on.

So its just the hubby and I today, as I am off from work, the daughter is at work and the dogs went to daycare to run off some energy. Since we need to go out and get our food for Thanksgiving tomorrow, we are going to try a little shopping too.  Let's see how well hubby's energy holds out, but I think he is excited to go and have something to do. I'm excited to spend the day together.

That's all for me.  Hope everyone has a great day!

T Stands for Thank You to Caring Friends

Happy Tuesday everyone. Another T Day has rolled around. :)  this is a cold and blustery Tuesday in m neck of the woods and the ground is still a bit white from yesterday's snow.

And its my last workday of the week before the long holiday weekend begins.

Hurrah!

With Thanksgiving in a couple of days, I thought on this T Day I would share something I am thankful for. Here's a DELICIOUS veggie lasagna that one of my friends and coworkers made for me (and my family)  when my husband came home from the hospital.

It was made with tomatoes, spinach, eggplant, mushrooms, green peppers and fresh herbs.

Yummy!

It was so good I ate it all. You can see my choice of drink with dinner that night was a big glass of cold milk.

It always impresses me to see how people's kindness comes out when you need them. :)

Such a great sentiment with Thanksgiving coming here in the US in just a couple of days.

Stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to link up your T Day drink (and food) and be sure to check out what everyone else is enjoying.

So I'm tired this morning because yesterday was a pretty CRAZY day. A couple of inches of now melted snow made the roads bad for my commute into work. A tragic car roll over closed down the highway and so myself, along with everyone else, had to drive through one of the cities-right through downtown, and so it ended up taking me 2 hours to get to work (and made me 45 minutes late for the start of school). Then last night the National Honor Society group I advise ran a class competition for scholarships in the names of 3 students who died tragically in previous years here at school. The event was successful, and the parents of these students are always appreciative. I am also thankful to my 2 coworkers who advise with me, and all the awesome students on the NHS board who really are the workers and pulled off this event. 

So today I am ready to wrap up my classes and start a relaxing long weekend eating turkey! 

Thanks for stopping by to visit.

And Happy T day and Happy Thanksgiving (if you celebrate)  to those of you who only stop by my blog for T.

Beep Beep

Another week begins, but for me its a short one with the Thanksgiving Holiday. I love this upcoming holiday weekend because it is so much more low key than Christmas, but still a weekend filled some fun. This year we are staying home and doing Thanksgiving with just the 3 of us because of my husband's recoupings, but the daughter's boyfriend is coming out later in the day for dessert.  I'm thankful he's coming because he is going to help my daughter and I go get our Christmas tree Friday. That's because this year the hubby won't be able to drag a tree out of the farm. We figured we might as well go get it and get it done while we are around the rest of the weekend and we have another set of muscles to help us.

So today I have a piece for both Art Journal Journey and Moo Mania. In fact I started the car for Moo Mania for the last challenge which was wheels, but then I never finished it and so I transformed it into one that fit stripes, which is the latest challenge. :) And over at Art Journal Journey the theme is collage- with no leaves, wings or faces. 

So while I write this the first snow flakes of the year are coming down, and hopefully the ground won't be white in the morning. :) But I shall see!

Enjoy your new week everyone.

Life Lately

Howdy everyone.  Its Saturday evening and the space in my back between my shoulder blades is SOO sore. With some nice weather (before it all changes tomorrow they say), I have been raking and finishing up my yard work. Yahoo! Happy to do it and even though I am sore , it is all for good.

You can see how beautiful a day it was on my morning walk today.

Luckily my daughter was home today and helped me out by running the lawn mower over the backyard to pick up the leaves.  I only wish the lawn mower could go through the gardens and over the driveway where  some large leaf dunes had formed. But I got those all cleaned up today so should we need to clean snow in a few days we won't be shoveling wet leaves along with the snow.

 I'm a little worried that we might get  deep snow. But hopefully we don't, and if we do, I have the name of a plow guy.

So I hate to say my art output is way down lately. Last week I was back to work most days and then had to do some chauffeuring of the hubby home from dialysis. Never mind we've had visiting nurses and physical therapists coming and going from the house when I am home all day which takes up time. I did  manage to start some things because I had  a couple of  hours here and there, so right now I have a pile of slightly worked on pages which I am hoping I will get  back to tomorrow.  But as always, we shall see.

But sitting with the hubby and watching some TV with him in the evening, I did finish my first knitted Christmas stocking of the year.

I had fun playing with color and pattern. My goal  for this stocking was playing with colors and the black bear image that represents my and my hubby's college alma mater. 

I started another stokcing and this time I am playing with patterns from a geometric pattern book I have.

And in the book world I've been reading about food over the last few weeks.

 This cookbook and food read was interesting cake project that was part of National Public Radio's All Things Considered show. 50+ yummy sounding recipes for me to try as  Melissa Gray, the author, made one a week and took it into the Washington DC NPR station. I really enjoyed this book.

 This book was an enjoyable light and easy read. Maybe a little too light and easy, but I think a good choice for while the hubby was in the hospital and I was doing a bunch of waiting room waiting. It also has some yummy recipes in it.  

And I am inspired to make cookies for the holidays. I think molded cookies are gorgeous. and I have a couple of new for me molds that I picked up last summer at the hospital street fair (which is like a huge yard sale). I also got 4 for 99 cents and another one for  4 dollars on eBay.  But first, I want to find out what I need to do to make perfect cookies. 

And speaking of 99 cent and $4 cookie molds, I had a gold mine when the $4 mold arrived yesterday. Look  what the seller stuffed the box with!

Tons of dressmaking pattern paper! I think I might have even been more excited about  this than the cookie mold.  Ha-ha.

Not much else new. Still nursing the hubby and getting excited for Thanksgiving coming up in less than a week. 

Thanks for visiting.

Joy

Here's  journal page I made that makes me happy. Some stenciling, some paint, a bit of doodling and free cut letters, some stamps, some more paint, and some sparkly glue. 

This week is flying right by as its Thursday already. Just a week until Thanksgiving. Still don't know what we are doing, but I am hoping to have a quiet one at home. We shall see.

The hubby is doing so much better too. Its amazing after one week at home how far he has come. The physical therapist has told him he is ready to start doing some 15 minutes walks and that's the best therapy he can get. And although he still needs painkiller drugs to sleep,  he is now going all day without any painkillers which is a big hump to get over.  Maybe when he goes back next week to the doctor he will get the all clear to drive.

Its all good news. :) Step by step.

It is also hard to  believe that his surgery was 2 weeks ago already.

Not much else going on here other than another workday is beginning.

Hope your day is a good one.

Magic

This page is really different for me, but sometimes when you're playing the page takes on a life of its own. Since this month's theme  at Art Journal Journey is collage with no wings, leaves or faces, I thought this page would work.  Thanks Susi for the challenge. I am enjoying thinking in a different way than I usually do.

So this page began with some brown paint. I actually rubbed it up against another painted page to get rid of some of the paint blobs on the other page. Once dry I stamped the big Native American pot, which I then colored with both markers and paint. I also painted the sun and added some die cuts. 

I will say this page made me think of some kind of exotic desert magic, so I then painted the magic power coming out of the pot. I added dots of glitter (which I know are hard to see) and some stamped images.

I don't know if you remember this bridge photo I showed you last month  from my leaf peeping day trip.

So right now there's a wild fire burning near it. I knew there was a fire up in the mountains in the White Mountain National Forest, but they showed us on the news that the fire burned almost right up to the bridge.We don't get a lot of these types of forest fires here in New Hampshire as most years we are a pretty moist place, but even with the fall rain, we are still way behind on our moisture levels. Makes me wonder how badly the landscape has been damaged.
Well, off to work again. Hope everyone has a great day.

Apple Cider Mimosas for T Day

While the hubby was in the hospital I seemed to eat out a lot. First of all I had no time to grocery shop, and second of all, it was too easy to grab something for a late lunch  while the hubby was napping before I would  head back to the hospital. Then I only needed a light snack once I got home in the evening.

So one day my sister-in-law came down for a visit, which was a little to early for my husband. He was still not ready for visitors so we decided to go get a little late lunch and let him rest. We each had one of these apple cider mimosas, which were actually quite good. I'm not sure what they actually put into them but they didn't taste (or make me feel) like they had much alcohol in them.
There are 3 glasses because my daughter was also with us.

To go along with this mimosa, I had this crab cake BLT sandwich with sweet potato fries. Since it was huge, I skipped the roll and the ate most of the filling, along with too many of those sweet potato fries.

It definitely got my blood sugar back up and got me ready to go back to the hospital. :)
So what have you been drinking and eating? Stop by  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog Altered Book Lover for another T for Tuesday installment.
Happy Tuesday. :)

Cookies

I've been home the last few days with the hubby  while he's recuperating from his recent heart surgery.  I finally woke up today feeling caught up on my rest.  I didn't realize how wiped out I actually was, but its not surprising since I had the hubby's surgery, the daughter buying a new car and school having exams  and the end of the grading quarter all going on at once. I've really enjoyed my time home, although not exactly a vacation it is a help not to have to think about much other than spoiling the hubby a little bit and doing a few of those things around the house I have wanted (or needed) to do.

This morning I finally vacuumed (boy did it need it) and also managed to clean 8 trash bags of  junk out of the basement. Now tomorrow it all has to be lugged to the dump, which will probably be quite a comedy since the hubby's truck is about 3 times taller than me.

I also baked the hubby a little treat today. 

I made some butter refrigerator cookies. This is an easy recipe from Martha Stewart than can also be flavored differently. 

Once you make the cookie dough, you roll or shape it into a log, refrigerate it for at least a few hours, and then slice it into cookies ready to bake.

At Christmas I like to roll the dough log in colored sugar before refrigerating to make them festive, but today I didn't. I actually made 3 batches today- plain with vanilla flavor, some with chopped hazelnuts and finally some flavored with lemon a a bit of cracked black pepper. It was just as easy to make 3 batches as it was to make 1 batch since I had everything out and ready to use.

 They're not fancy but they do taste good. 

The hubby enjoyed a couple too.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

Using Up the Left Overs

Susi's challenge at Art Journal Journey this month is collage-but NO faces, wings or leaves. I took advantage of the collage theme and created a page with some left overs. My background is some edge scraps of a Gelli print and some phone book scraps. Then I painted this and sprayed a little ink too. I then added some die cuts which I was using as masks on other projects and some left over die cut letters. Once the matte medium dried, I added a little decorating to my die cuts, and I did a bit of stamping, and I was done.

A quiet weekend at my house with the hubby home recouping from his heart surgery. I think I need to motivate myself to clean the house a little bit. Its easy to be lazy after all the running around while he was in the hospital.

I hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Home

I finally have some collage art for Susi's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month is having fun with collage BUT you CAN'T use  wings, leaves or faces. I started this page way back on the first of month but haven't had a chance to get back to it until today while the hubby was taking his several naps. This page has lots of torn and cut paper pieces, as well as some doodling, stamping and some splashes of paint.

I am also linking up to Paint Party FRiday. Thank you Eva and Kristen for hosting. Stop by both sites to see some awesome art.

And I  have a few late fall photos to show you that I've taken in the last week.

These leaves were in my driveway the other morning on my way out.

And on my way to vote the other morning I came across these turkeys. I see turkeys all the time, but never have I seen 2 turkeys fighting. It looked pretty nasty too.

I don't know how well it is to see them as they were away off and I only I had  my phone and snapped them through the windshield.

Oh well.

And another week is wrapping up. Veteran's Day here in the US. I believe it is called Armistice Day in Europe. This is going to be a very quiet weekend since the hubby is home recuperating. That's OK with me though since I need to do some cleaning and want to spend some creative and relaxing time.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Holiday Journal Book Making

 Hi everyone. I must say I've been in a low key mood today. Back to work after several days, and many of us (including many of my students) were moaning and groaning about the embarrassing election results here in the US. But the hubby came home today from the hospital! Yahoo! I am taking tomorrow off so someone is home with him, so that gives me a 4 day weekend. I am very excited to have some home time- and maybe I will even get into the studio.

Or at least I can hope!

So a few weeks ago I showed you a new arty book I picked up.

In this book I learned a new book making process which I wanted to try. So I made myself a holiday journal. (I did this all before the hubby's heart surgery.)

I'll warn you, this my first attempt at the technique, and I'm rather messy to start, so bear with me. The beauty of making something is that it has little flaws. They just give the finished project some personalized character. :)

I cut the covers off an old library book I picked up on the "please take for free" table.  I covered the covers with some holiday fabric. Then I used some book binding tape to make the spine.

To make the book signatures, I folded some water color paper in half  and made the little signatures using 2 pieces of this folded paper. Then I took each of these and ran the fold through my sewing machine. to connect them.

Then I stacked the signatures  and using a needle and thread, I hand stitched up and down through the outside of my machine stitching to connect all my signatures.

It was a bit of a challenge finding the best thread to do this with. I started with waxed binding thread, which was too thick, and then I moved to regular sewing thread, which was too thin and kept breaking. So finally I used some machine embroidery thread which worked great! After they were stitched, a cut a piece of gauze, and using white book binding glue, I glued it on the edge. You can see that above.

After it dried I used some red line tape, as you can also see above, to attached the outside of  each side of the pages to the cover.

 Like a professionally bound book, it leaves space between the spine and pages.

 I started working with a little cover decoration. There's more to it, but I've yet to take a photo of that, so you'll have to wait for another day to see the finished result.

 I wish I had taken more photos are I made the journal instead of waiting to the end, but next time. I really like making my book this way, so I will do this process again.

Not much else new here.

Thanks for visiting.